Building Trust
by Johanna's Motivational Insults
Summary: Begins in the weeks following 4x13. Echo and Bellamy rebuild their relationship during their time on the Ark. Eventual romantic Becho, Echo 3rd person POV.
1. Weakness

This is basically your run-of-the-mill Becho time jump fic, though I hope you enjoy it nonetheless! It will contain some allusions to Echo's childhood, but I am saving much of that for another fic I'm working on that's basically my elaborate headcanons about Echo's upbringing and her relationships with Nia and Roan and Ontari, as well as background on the Azgeda/Trikru conflict and how that affected some events in the series. Once it's published, I'll make a note of it and you all can cross-reference things I mention here with that fic, as they are intended to be in the same universe.

UPDATE: The backstory fic is now online, under the title "Ice." You can find the link on my author page.

(For those who follow me for Joniss, I'm still working on those stories, I'm just working out some of my The 100 feels in the wake of the finale. If you crave new content, I recently updated my babysitter au, which you can find on my Tumblr.)

* * *

She still wakes up screaming. Even hundreds of miles from the earth's surface, Echo can't escape the horrors she faced there. Tonight it was the sick feeling of waking in a drugged haze, hanging from her ankles and too weak to move. Though the Mountain is the most common source of her nightmares, it's far from the only one. The death of her parents. Vicious beatings for failing her queen. More recently, asphyxiation. An empty oxygen tank or a pair of angry hands at her throat.

For the longest time, Echo was able to hold everything together. Her esteemed position made all her suffering worth it, and she could funnel any pesky emotions into combat training. But now she has none of that. She's arguably the most useless person on this ship and has no one to fight. Nothing to occupy her time or her mind. Nothing to distract her from the fear and loneliness she feels, from the painful realization that she is a broken person.

It's these facts as much as the nightmare itself that make Echo's eyes burn with tears. Burying her face in her pillow, she let them dribble out along with a few quiet sobs. She's never been much of a crier, but nothing at all about the last few weeks has been normal. When Roan banished her, he not only doomed her to die, he destroyed her sense of self. What was she without Azgeda, without a monarch to serve or a people to defend? So maybe it's not Echo at all who's muffling her sobs in her pillow, but someone completely different inhabiting the sack of skin that once belonged to the fearsome warrior.

A knock at the door makes Echo go stiff, freezing her in the fetal position facing the opposite wall. "Echo?" a voice calls quietly. Fucking Bellamy. A moment passes before the creak of the door on its hinges pierces the silence, followed by his voice. "Echo, I heard you screaming all the way down the hall. I know you're awake."

"Go away, Bellamy," growls Echo, pulling the covers tighter around her body.

He hesitates. "Is that what you really want?" When she fails to reply, he slips in the door and closes it behind him, but comes no closer. "Was it a nightmare?"

Keeping her sniffle as quiet as she can, Echo wipes her eyes. "What do you care?"

"Would I be here if I didn't care?"

Echo values her self-sufficiency over almost everything else, but she doesn't know that she can survive five years isolating herself from everyone on this ship. She wouldn't want to. Still staring at the opposite wall, she mumbles, "It was the Mountain."

Bellamy's voice goes soft. "I understand."

"Do you?" she snarks into the darkness. "After a few hours and one harvesting?"

"Would you have survived that one harvesting?" he shoots back. Echo sets her jaw, not wanting to admit that she has her own doubts about that. For all the times they've saved each other, it was Bellamy who saved her first. After she greeted him with a wad of saliva. Bellamy sighs, and when he speaks again his tone has lost its edge. "If you want to talk to someone who does understand, Monty and Harper were locked in cages for days and drilled into for their bone marrow. Harper was all but dead when Jasper got them out. She still has nightmares too."

Would that even be useful? Wouldn't dredging up those memories just make the nightmares worse? "I'll keep that in mind," Echo responds blankly.

Bellamy's footsteps start to edge closer, and Echo squeezes her eyes shut in frustration. It's not that she wants to be alone. She wants to want to be alone. She wants to be okay with that. Emotional attachments only lead to pain. They are weakness. And she's known since the day she met Bellamy that he would become her weakness if she allowed it. It was proven on that day she lured him away from the Mountain when she should have left him to die. And again on the day she broke her promise to shoot him if he did not get out of her way.

"Do you really want me to leave?"

Echo swallows the ache growing in her throat at the proposition. "Do whatever the hell you want, Bellamy."

After a short pause, Bellamy's surprised voice fills the void. "Who told you about that?"

Echo shifts her weight just enough to squint at him over her shoulder. "Told me about what?"

He blinks, shaking his head sharply. "That's just a thing I used to say, when we first landed. Never mind."

"No wonder you weren't in charge," snorts Echo.

Hard lines form in Bellamy's face as he sets his jaw. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Really, she only said that to get under his skin, but there's a ring of truth to it. "People need confident direction to feel comfortable. I wouldn't want a king who gave no orders."

"I gave orders," he snaps. "I took charge, at least until Clarke took over. We fought a lot." Bellamy appears to go somewhere else for a moment, then sighs as he refocuses on Echo. "My point was, we should do what we wanted, not be accountable to the adults who sent us down to die." Prompted by Echo's confused squint, he explains, "A group of teenaged prisoners came down first, to see if Earth was inhabitable. I snuck on board to protect Octavia."

Turning fully onto her back, Echo props herself up on her elbows and raises an intrigued eyebrow. "How old is Clarke?" Her forehead creases. "Was Clarke."

Bellamy swallows, the pain in his eyes forcing him to look away. "Eighteen."

Admittedly impressed, Echo nods to herself. "She carried herself very well."

"She'd been through a lot."

Echo rolls her eyes. "Haven't we all."

"I wouldn't know," remarks Bellamy, meeting her gaze again. "You haven't told me a thing about yourself."

"You haven't asked," she points out.

"Would you have answered?"

Shrugging noncommittally, she admits, "Probably not. But that was before we got stuck here together for five years."

That's the closest Echo will come to confessing that she craves human connection. That she does not want to be so isolated despite her efforts to the contrary. But it seems Bellamy understands, from the way he eases himself down onto the mattress. Whatever is in their past, the alliances have changed, and so have the rules. Maybe they finally can begin to rebuild some trust in each other.

Bellamy tucks his right heel between his thighs so he can sit beside Echo while keeping one foot on the ground. Half in, half out. The ache in Echo's chest crescendos and is joined by a tingle in her limbs, urging her to grab his shirt and pull him down, pull him closer. It is immutable, this longing to wrap herself around him and find comfort and life in his touch. She hates herself for constantly losing control of her mind around this man. The most she can do is control her hands, wind them tightly in the sheets. They will find other places to reside later. When he inevitably leaves and she is alone again.

"Why were you so loyal to Queen Nia?" asks Bellamy, mercifully pulling her from the quicksand of her own thoughts. It's a strange question though, and a particularly stupid one. "From all accounts, she was a pretty terrible person."

"I don't know," Echo huffs defensively, "why did you follow that Pike man and kill a sleeping army sent to protect you?"

"Because someone destroyed my trust in Grounders," retorts Bellamy. As they hold eye contact, the anger in his expression fades to regret. Echo keeps her face as blank as possible. She never intended to hurt Bellamy, and seeing the fruit of her actions is far from pleasant. Still, she doesn't regret them.

"If I hadn't lied to you, you would have died," Echo reminds him calmly.

"You could have told me the truth and saved us all."

"And betray my clan and my queen? Do you have any idea what they would have done to me?" It was bad enough, what did happen to her for deviating from the plan and getting Roan arrested when news of the attack came over Bellamy's radio.

Blinking away, Bellamy speculates, "Death by 49 cuts?"

"If I was lucky," Echo pronounces emphatically. "The queen was ruthless, Bellamy. I didn't dare disobey."

"So again, why did you protect her if she was so awful?"

"She was a good ruler," protests Echo. "Everything she did, she did for Azgeda."

Bellamy chuckles under his breath, earning himself a glare. "You still didn't answer."

Staring vacantly down the bed, Echo chooses to surrender. It's not something she does with any regularity. Her voice turns as sad as her eyes as she tells him, "Because she took me in after my parents died in battle. That's how I got into the Royal Guard. I'm everything I am because of her." Echo's mouth twitches. "Everything I was."

"And that's a good thing?" counters Bellamy.

Echo's mucles tense, activating into battle mode as a chill sweeps through her. "I guess not," she states, barely reigning in the warble that wants to affect her voice. Turning to Bellamy with a glare, she orders him, "Get out."

"Echo-"

"Leave me alone, Bellamy," she repeats, her tone harsh and cool. Unforgiving.

Bellamy averts his eyes with a small nod and heads for the door. Halfway into the hall, he pauses long enough to mumble, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

Except he did. How else could he have meant it? He thinks so little of her and barely even tries to hide it. So what if she's strong, as he said when he coaxed her off the floor and onto the spaceship? It's one of the highest compliments someone could pay her, but if that's all she has to offer, it leaves no room for weakness. And Echo knows she can't be strong every minute of every day for the next five years. Not when she feels so out of place on this ship and with these people.

* * *

I don't intend for this to be a long fic, but I will probably add a few more chapters.


	2. Reaching Out

Another night, another nightmare. Echo's come to expect it. When they first got here, she would stay up well into the night, avoiding the nightmares by avoiding sleep. But she had to sleep sometime, and they'd always come anyway. Better to resign herself to the terrors at night and be alert during the day, on the off chance she's given something useful to do.

She hasn't taken Bellamy's advice about commiserating with Harper over the horrors they faced in the Mountain. She's thought about it, but she's barely spoken to the girl before and Echo's not exactly talented at breaking the ice. Plus, she's worried Harper might still be holding a grudge over the time Echo took her boyfriend hostage and threatened his life. Everyone on the ship has one reason or another to hate her. It makes reaching out difficult.

Echo doesn't know if she screamed, only that she woke in a cold sweat. No matter, Bellamy hasn't come to see her again even when she has woken up screaming. Not that she blames him. She told him to leave her alone. And he has, making only shy eye contact and minimal conversation in the past nine days. It annoys her that she's kept track of the days since their fight, not that she can help it.

Now wide awake, Echo decides to go for a walk around the ring to take her mind off the nightmare. Rolling out of bed, she pulls on her tattered navy hoodie and jams her feet into her well-worn boots. At least she still has a few things of her own from home, everything she had on her person when she followed the truck out of Polis. The door creaks as it opens and closes, but otherwise the hallway is dead silent save for the muted electric hum that's a constant in most places on the Ark. Her Skaikru neighbors all say she and Emori will get used to it, but for now it's just one more thing driving her mad.

A few minutes down the hall, Echo arrives at the big window overlooking the earth and finds Bellamy standing there. She's only surprised by another person's presence because of how late it is. The window is popular. Sometimes Echo will look out over the scorched planet and reminisce about what it was like to stand on its surface, back when it was green instead of orange. Tonight she was planning to keep walking to avoid thinking about any of that, but Bellamy's presence gives her pause. He'd probably understand if she kept walking. They all have their demons and their own ways of dealing with them.

Approaching the window before she can talk herself out of it, Echo sidles up to Bellamy and grunts, "Hey."

"Hey, Echo." Bellamy's words are barely a whisper, and there's a distinct catch in them. They're followed by an even more obvious swallow, and without thinking Echo reaches out to touch his forearm. Bellamy blinks over in surprise, allowing her a glimpse of his glassy eyes before he redirects them out the window.

She's never been very good at feelings, but Echo at least understands the pain of losing loved ones. It's hard to access after so many years of suppressing her emotions, but she can try. For Bellamy, she can try. Consciously softening her voice, she probes, "Thinking about Octavia?"

"Clarke."

Echo should be jealous. The pesky emotion has stirred her gut more than once in the presence of Bellamy and Clarke. Their meaningful looks and longing glances, the sacrifices made and risks taken for each other. They weren't really a couple, she knew that, but they would have done anything for each other. She's never had anyone so loyal to her. She was always the loyal one, the disposable one.

But no, she is not jealous. That surprises her a little, but maybe it shouldn't. Clarke's dead. Clarke's not here. And Echo can't harbor any ill will toward Clarke after she sacrificed herself to save the seven of them on the ship. The only thing Echo feels is a sad sort of longing and resignation. Bellamy couldn't ever feel the same way about her. Could he? Masking her thoughts, she keeps her tone very matter-of-fact as she asks, "Did she know you loved her?"

Bellamy visibly startles, head whipping around to stare at her. Eyes fluttering, he shakes his head. "I don't know. I was about to tell her when we dropped her at the island the first time, but she cut me off." Drumming his fingertips on the glass, he mutters, "I think she knew but didn't want to know. She was still in love with Lexa."

"I gather you weren't a fan either."

He snorts in acknowledgement. "What did Lexa do to you?"

Really, it's a case as much of what she did to Lexa as what Lexa did to her, but Echo doesn't want to talk about that right now. Or ever. "She was Trikru," she says. That's plenty enough reason, and Bellamy knows it. Waffling a moment, she admits, "And she banished Roan. He was the closest thing I had to a friend."

Bellamy hums. "Other than betraying our alliance and stealing Clarke's heart, she almost killed Octavia, twice," he chimes in. Lips slowly curling upward, he adds, "Then again, so did you."

"After I saved both of you at Mount Weather," Echo reminds him, in no mood for his teasing. "And then she tried to kill me by kicking me out of the bunker, and you didn't say shit."

"I wasn't happy about it. But she was in charge."

"You had her ear. If anyone could've changed her mind, it was you."

Scanning her face, Bellamy admits, "Maybe I didn't think you deserved it."

"Oh, like you deserved to live?" Echo retorts. What a fucking hypocrite. "What, you think you're Wanheda now? Deciding who lives and dies?"

"Shut up about Clarke," snaps Bellamy. "You didn't even know her."

It's not the venom in his tone but the pain in his eyes that makes Echo stand down. Bellamy doesn't scare her. She could slay him in body or spirit, if she wanted. "I know she was willing to sacrifice her life to save Emori's, and mine," she counters evenly. "And that she did sacrifice it saving all of us." At Bellamy's curious look, she shrugs and directs her gaze out the window. "I'd almost killed her too, and she showed me mercy. Unlike some people."

"Octavia was never shown any mercy either," he tells her. "She's had a hard life."

"What was her crime?" When he doesn't answer, Echo clarifies, "You said she was one of the prisoners. What did she do wrong?"

"She existed," grunts Bellamy, glaring at his own reflection. "There was this law on the Ark. You could only have one child. Our population had gotten too big."

With a confused blink, Echo surmises, "So Octavia got locked up because your parents broke the law?"

"Our mom. We had different dads." Finally he meets her gaze again. "We kept O hidden for sixteen years, but I…" Bellamy swallows. "I made a mistake, and they found her. Locked her up, floated our mom."

Floated. Echo's heard that term a few times, most often Raven telling Murphy to go float himself. At first she thought Raven meant it literally, like how she told Murphy not to float in the rocket to avoid wasting oxygen. Eventually she clued in that it was a weird Skaikru insult somewhat analogous to _jok yu_. But if that's what it means, well, that sounds like a very odd punishment indeed. Sensing her confusion, Bellamy explains, "They threw her off the ship."

Echo's eyebrows fly up and she nods out the window. "Out there?"

"Yeah, out there."

"And that kills you, right?" How insensitive a question that is doesn't strike her until Bellamy narrows his eyes. "Just asking. Raven had to wear a suit outside."

"There's no air to breathe, Echo," he snarks. "What do you think?"

"Sorry." Staring down at her fidgeting hands, she murmurs, "What was her name?"

"Aurora."

"Like the Northern Lights," muses Echo. They didn't usually come that far south, but she's seen them a few times. Risking a glance at Bellamy, she asks, "You were close to her?"

"She was my only family for years," he says. "My dad died when I was little. I barely remember him."

"And Octavia's?"

"Mom never told us who he was. Maybe it was his second child too and she thought he'd make her get an abortion if she told him. I don't know."

Echo blinks at the unfamiliar word. "Abortion?"

"Give her a pill to make the baby die."

"Oh." She furrows her brow. In an underpopulated world of warring clans, Azgeda had a much different philosophy. The more babies you could have, the better. "We didn't need pills for that. Enough kids died as it was." After a moment's hesitation, she decides to reciprocate Bellamy's candor. "I had a brother, once. But he died of an infection when he was three."

"I'm sorry."

She shrugs. "I don't remember him, I was just a baby. But my parents said we were close, and that I kept looking around for him and crying after he died." Echo shifts in place, shoving her hands deep in the pockets of her hoodie. "Then my mom miscarried once, when I was six. A few years before they died."

Bellamy nods, eyes alert with recognition. "In battle, you said?"

"Kind of. They were posted near Polis and their battalion was ambushed by Trikru at dawn." She shoots Bellamy a sly smirk over her shoulder. "I guess what goes around comes around."

"Polis is in Trikru territory," Bellamy reasons, ignoring that not-so-subtle barb. "Maybe they thought they were about to get attacked."

"Probably. Queen Nia was known to be an aggressor." Finally free of the queen's wrath or any need to protect her clan, Echo continues, "It wouldn't surprise me if she sent the soldiers down there hoping Trikru would attack. Start a war but look like the victim, unite the nation in their hatred for Trikru. She was manipulative like that."

He cocks an eyebrow. "She manipulate you?"

Echo rolls her eyes. "I was nine. It's not like it was hard." Gazing out at the earth, she admits, "I did some pretty awful shit for her."

A warm palm on her shoulder makes her startle, lift her eyes to Bellamy's face. Instead of the hardness and distrust she's grown used to, he's wearing that charming disarming smile again. The one he used to coax her onto the ship with a joke about needing someone to throw overboard. Giving her shoulder a knowing squeeze, he points out, "I've done some pretty awful shit in my day, too."

It's not fair how he can do this to her. How he sends the blood rushing to her cheeks and… other places. Fighting off an urge to reach out and cup his cheek, trail her fingers down his defined jawbone, Echo tightens her fists in her pockets. Grips the fabric tight, just to keep a grip on herself. Feeling the sudden tension under his touch, Bellamy slides his hand off her shoulder, eyes concerned and a little curious. Echo has to squeeze hers shut so he can't see the devastation in them as his hand grazes down her shoulder blade and falls away.

At least it's a small relief as well. She can function again. Subtly clearing her throat, she opens her eyes and nods down the hall. "I'm out for a walk. You want to join me?"

Bellamy turns back to the window. Stomach tying itself in knots, Echo is bracing for a rejection when he nods and catches her eye with a smile, sending her heart soaring. "Sure."


	3. Breaking the Ice

A/N: Sorry for the delay, I'm back. Had some health issues and work stuff to deal with. There should be one more chapter, and I'll try to get it up before the season 5 premiere.

* * *

Keeping busy proves challenging on the Ark. The first several days were a whirlwind of activity as they got the algae farm and all the life support systems up and running, but since then there has been little of anything useful to do. Unless you're Raven or Bellamy, who always find something to work on or worry about. The two couples on board the ship have each other to pass the time, so Echo is mostly left to her own devices.

Though she's had no need for domestic skills since she was nine years old, eventually Echo takes to running the makeshift dining area. She goes nuts without some kind of purpose, and this is something she can do for the group, something she can take ownership of. According to Clarke's orders back at the lab, everyone is to get an average of half an MRE package for each meal. Using this as a guideline, Echo splits up the packs and organizes the supplies, then distributes the rations at mealtimes. After the meals, she collects trash and wipes the table. Murphy refers to her as Mom one time, but the glare she shoots him shuts him up. It only occurs to her later that it might have been an affectionate joke. She's not used to affection, or jokes.

One afternoon about six weeks into their stay on the Ark, Echo's recruited to assist Monty and Harper. Apparently they finally got bored of doing nothing but each other, or maybe their consciences caught up with them and they decided they needed to be useful. In any case, they're busying themselves rummaging through and taking inventory of some old storage room. Monty's hands are finally healing enough for him to do more than give others instructions, maybe that's why he's suddenly itching for work to do.

Alone with the two of them, Echo remembers Bellamy's advice from a few weeks back. Her nightmares aren't going anywhere, and they might be the two who could most relate. Though she's never carried much of a conversation with either of them, Echo decides to give it a shot. Break the ice, so to speak. Looking up from where she's crouched digging through a trunk of clothes, she throws out a casual, "Do you ever get nightmares about the Mountain?"

Both of them freeze and slowly turn her way. "What?" asks Harper weakly, her face draining of color.

"Bellamy said you two were there too. He seemed to think talking about it might help." The others continue to give her blank stares, so she shrugs and explains, "I don't usually talk about things, but I figured it was worth a shot."

Monty clears his throat subtly. "Yeah, I get nightmares." Casting his girlfriend a sidelong look, he adds, "We both do."

"How do you deal with it?"

Harper shifts her weight, fidgeting with her sleeve. "This isn't really easy to talk about, Echo."

"That's what _I_ thought," Echo responds, rolling her eyes. "I shouldn't have listened to Bellamy. Forget I asked." She returns her gaze to the trunk, but nonetheless can feel the unabating tension in the room even as the others quietly return to their tasks. After an awkward moment she thinks to add, "I apologize if I made you uncomfortable."

A quiet snort fills the room. From Harper, Echo thinks, but she's not sure. In any case, neither of them replies. Trying to ignore the heat rising in her cheeks, Echo gets back to work.

While Echo is cleaning up after dinner that evening, Monty and Harper linger at the table, talking quietly. After the awkward first pass at socialization that afternoon, she doesn't say a word to them. But just as she's putting the trash can away, Harper speaks up. "Echo?"

Echo blinks up in surprise. "Yeah?"

Harper lifts her hand, showing Echo the deck of cards in her grasp. "Wanna play?"

"Sure," shrugs Echo, plopping down across from Monty while Harper begins shuffling the deck. She only knows a few games, and she's about to ask which one they have in mind when Harper speaks again.

"There's not much you can do," she mumbles. Meeting Echo's eye, she sees the confusion on her face and clarifies, "For the nightmares."

Monty lays a hand on Harper's thigh and gives her a reassuring nod. "Having each other helps." They share a small smile that makes Echo roll her eyes in a combination of nausea and jealousy.

"Must be nice," Echo mutters to the table. Sensing eyes on her, when she flicks hers up she finds a couple of surprised teenagers eyeing her. Her words must have come out more obviously sullen than intended. Waving away their unspoken questions, she plays it off with a snort. "It's okay, I'm not asking to sleep with the two of you. Gross."

"Gross?" parrots Harper, cocking an eyebrow.

"I meant no offense," says Echo. "You guys just aren't my type."

Monty blinks curiously. "Who is your type?"

Harper snickers and puts her lips to his ear conspiratorially. "Tall, dark, and brooding."

As they share a chuckle at her expense, Echo can feel her cheeks wanting to flare up again. She doesn't like people reading her without permission. And if others on the ship are wise to her attraction to Bellamy, that could spell trouble. Still, getting defensive will surely only bring on more teasing, so she decides to shock and hopefully distract them with a different tactic. Oversharing.

Shrugging like Harper's observation doesn't bother her in the slightest, Echo admits, "Also short, dark, and mouthy."

"Emori?" blinks Harper. Echo hums noncommittally, because while she does find Emori attractive, that's not who she was referring to. Harper's eyes pop. "Raven? Really?"

"Mm hm." True, Raven is not the object of Echo's affections at this time. But as for type, well, she's right in her wheelhouse.

"What about Murphy?" probes Monty.

Echo wrinkles her nose in thought. "Maybe. He's annoying, but I like mouthy people I can shut up in the sack. Gag, if they're into that." Sometimes she enjoys when partners give her orders too, but she's not divulging that part. Can't look weak.

Harper smothers a laugh in her palm, eyes wide. "TMI, Echo," she snickers, falling against Monty's shoulder. Echo squints at the unfamiliar slang and Harper translates, "Too much information."

"You asked what I like," she points out.

Circling an arm around his girlfriend, Monty teases, "Harper can be pretty mouthy."

"Don't give her any ideas," Harper scolds him. Echo waggles her eyebrows and Harper throws her a droll glare. "Yeah, gagging isn't my thing."

"How unfortunate," deadpans Echo.

Humming thoughtfully, Harper concludes, "I think we're too boring for you."

"Like I said, no offense."

"None taken," Harper assures her before suddenly perking up and calling, "Hey, Raven!" Echo turns her head and sees the resident mechanic approaching with a clipboard. "Come play cards with us," Harper urges Raven. Raising an eyebrow, she pats the space across from her with a cheeky, "Echo needs a partner."

While Monty and Harper try to hold back snickers, Raven squints bewilderedly. "Can't right now," she replies, giving the group a funny look. "Lots of gauges to check in this old tin can."

Once Raven's out of earshot, Harper finally releases the giggle she was fighting off and Echo shoots her a playful death glare. "I _will_ slit your throat, by the way."

***o***

Echo winds up wandering the ring after Monty and Harper retire to their quarters. It takes her a couple laps to realize that it's because she doesn't want to return to hers. Harper's claim that there's little one can do to stave off the nightmares was not particularly encouraging. At least Harper has someone she can wake up for comfort, as Monty alluded to. Though the lights will not go down for a couple more hours, Echo already finds herself dreading the night.

With this in mind, she finally decides on a destination. Though she is too proud to ask for company in her bed, waking hours are more tolerable when she's with other people. Especially Bellamy. Neither of those facts are things she would have expected mere months ago.

As she nears Bellamy's door, Echo curses her stomach for its telltale turbulence. How embarrassing. But this is a first, so it's not entirely unwarranted. She's never knocked on his door for social reasons before. They've taken a few nighttime walks together, but only when they met up by chance in the halls. It's far from a regular thing.

When Bellamy answers her knock, his eyebrows arch in surprise. "Echo, hey," he says, concern filling his tone and features. "What's up?"

"Nothing," she says, like some kind of idiot. The urge to roll her eyes at herself is strong, but she makes her face go blank. Like Roan taught her. Bellamy raises his eyebrows again, but he doesn't look annoyed. That's good. Trying to come up with something to say, some reason to be here, she settles on, "I talked to Monty and Harper. About the Mountain."

"Really?" he asks, surprise evident in his voice as he leans against the doorframe.

"Well, I tried to," she elaborates. "I don't think it's easy for them to discuss either."

Bellamy blinks down sheepishly. "I probably should have guessed that."

Before she can talk herself out of it, Echo asks him, "Do you want to go for a walk?"

"I'm not really in the mood," he says. Perhaps sensing her disappointment, he steps back into the room and adds, "But if you want to stay, be my guest."

Echo's heart jumps into her throat, rendering her momentarily mute. But she nods and steps inside, surveying the room as he closes the door behind her. Her gaze flicks back to Bellamy as he passes her, and she watches while he slips a bookmark into the book he's been holding. As he lays it on the bedside table, she asks, "What are you reading?"

"Oh," he says, casting her a sheepish glance. "It's a book of Greek and Roman myths. Old stuff, from thousands of years ago."

"Looking for bedtime stories?" teases Echo.

"No," he chuckles. "My mom really liked this stuff. She'd read the stories to me and O when we were kids."

"My parents read me stories about the old world. The time before the bombs," Echo shares, easing herself down onto the edge of Bellamy's bed.

"We have a lot of history about that up here too, you know," replies Bellamy, apparently not even remotely fazed. Good. "They lost access to some when they lost contact with Earth, but they stored as much as they could first. Printed a bunch of it in books later."

Echo hums in acknowledgement. "You should read it to me some day."

"Echo, you…" Bellamy squints. "You can read, right?"

She shrugs, flicking her eyes to the ceiling. "You have a nice voice."

A pause follows, one that feels infinitely longer than it actually is. When she hears movement, Echo looks over to find Bellamy picking up the book again. "You know, there's a story in here about someone named Echo," he tells her. "Would you like to hear it?"

Thrown by both the information and the offer, Echo blinks hard. "Um, sure."

Moving the pillow aside, Bellamy sits back against the headboard and opens the book. As he begins to tell the story, Echo lies back on the mattress and closes her eyes.

The tale is about a mountain nymph who was cursed by a powerful goddess to only be able to say the last few words she had heard. She fell in love with a boy she saw in the woods, but because of the curse could not tell him in words how she felt. Though he spurned her physical advances and fell in love with his own reflection instead, she fell more and more desperately in love with him anyway.

Unrequited love was her downfall. How uncomfortably relatable.

When Bellamy goes silent and puts the book aside with a quiet thump, her eyes flutter open. Neither of them says anything, but it's a comfortable silence, at least to Echo. How strange it is that she is able to lie next to Bellamy and feel no apprehension. And for him to sit beside her and fear no attack. As much as she misses the ground, some things are better up here.

"I miss the stars," muses Echo, staring at the blank metal ceiling.

Bellamy snorts goodnaturedly. "Echo, we're literally surrounded by stars," he chuckles. "Go look out any window."

She squeezes her eyes shut, mildly annoyed at having to explain herself. "I miss being able to lie on my back and look at them."

"Oh," says Bellamy, nodding as he clues in. His brow furrows in thought, then he stands and nods to the door. "Come with me."

Several silent minutes later, Bellamy opens an unfamiliar door and motions Echo into a dark room. She has only a couple seconds to squint into the darkness and try to take in her surroundings before the door closes behind them, rendering her all but blind again. Night vision was never one of her strengths.

"This way," calls Bellamy from several feet away.

Echo turns and follows his voice, promptly banging her shin on something. " _Skrish_!" she hisses, shaking out her throbbing leg. " _Joken… jok_. Ow."

She thinks she might hear Bellamy chuckling as he makes his way back. Before she has the chance to get indignant, he grasps her hand. "I'd turn on the lights, but that ruins the effect," he explains as he guides her along behind him.

The light is marginally better further into the room, and she can spy the outlines of a series of tables and chairs. But Bellamy still pulls her along, and she doesn't mind. When they reach one of the tables, Bellamy drops her hand and pats the wooden surface in an wordless order. Following his lead, Echo climbs on top and watches as he lies down, folding his hands behind his head. Looking to the ceiling, Echo sees a glass skylight full of twinkling stars.

"Neat, huh?" The grin in Bellamy's voice makes Echo realize her mouth has slipped open, and she snaps it shut. Lowering herself to the table, she lies down beside him and mirrors his position. The table is pretty narrow and her elbow jostles his, but they shift to make room for each other.

As she stares up at the stars, it occurs to Echo that she can hardly hear any machine hum. It's muffled and distant, and with the lights off there's no electrical buzz either. She can almost forget where she is. "It's beautiful." She pushes out a sigh. "Now all I need is some crickets chirping, maybe a light breeze, and it's almost like I'm home."

Bellamy turns his head. "You'll make it back."

Echo sighs again, eyes still on the stars. "Five years?"

"Our ancestors survived up here for ninety-seven," he points out.

"That's different. You're from here."

"And now that I've been to Earth, I know what I'm missing. I get it." The table creaks as Bellamy shifts beside her, turning onto his side to prop himself up on an elbow. "But we might as well try to make the best of it here, huh? Have a little fun?"

"You have someone for me to torture?" Echo jokes flatly.

"Murphy will deserve it, at some point," Bellamy deadpans just as flawlessly.

"Very true." They go silent, and Bellamy settles on his back again. As the minutes pass, the light of the moon starts to filter in the window, illuminating the room a little better. It's strange, passing the moon so many times a day. As the lighting improves and Echo's eyes adjust to the darkness, she starts to make out shelving along the walls. "Where are we?"

"The library," answers Bellamy. "There's a handful of books from the old world, but most of them were printed up here. When the American station heard the bombs were in the air, they archived a bunch of stuff from the internet so they could preserve human history and knowledge."

Echo squints into the stars. "Internet?"

"Computers." Brow crinkling in thought, he extrapolates, "Information stored in computers that anyone could access remotely, even from across the world. Or from space."

"That sounds like sorcery."

"Kind of," says Bellamy. "You should spend some time with Raven and Monty. They can show you how all this technology stuff works. It's pretty cool."

Echo nods, mulling this over. "I think living in the stars is enough to process for now."

"Fair enough."

The moon and stars keep crawling across the skylight as the Ark continues its orbit. It is different from Earth, where the stars are stationary and you can tell which direction you're facing by looking at them. But different isn't always bad. Turning to look at Bellamy in the last of the moon's light, Echo says, "Thanks for showing me this place."

Bellamy's lips turn up, and Echo catches a shadow of that adorable dimple in the fading light. "Yeah. You're welcome."

* * *

A/N: I threw the Panda Mechanic shippers a bone because hey, I ship that too. Also Tasya thinks they would be besties so that's a thing. They'll actually hang next chapter. :)

 _Skrish_! _Joken... jok_ = Shit! Fucking... fuck


	4. No Fear

A/N: Finally finished this story! Sorry for the delay, I had health issues and lots of other fics to update. On the bright side, this chapter is much longer than the others and hopefully feels like a satisfying ending. Of course now we know it took three years for Bellamy and Echo to reconcile, but hey, I started this between seasons, so I'm sticking with what we knew back then.

There's substantially more Trigedasleng in this chapter than any other, but I've included translations in the chapter end notes.

* * *

As the weeks continue to pass, things continue to shift and settle among Echo's new clan of sorts. New routines and friendships form out of necessity - either a pure practical need or the need to stay sane. The casual card games become a semi-required group activity most nights, and every Friday they congregate in a makeshift TV room to watch movies from the old world. The MREs run out a couple weeks after Bellamy first showed Echo the library, and Monty takes over the food preparation as they start eating the algae he's been farming. So once again, Echo finds herself without anything useful to contribute.

The best way to stave off the creeping sense of worthlessness is staying active. Running and lifting and training for battle have always helped Echo's mood even in the worst of times, unless of course she was recovering from an injury. Battle wounds, or ones inflicted at the queen's behest. Not being able to exercise always made those situations even more intolerable. No way out of her own head, no way to accomplish anything of worth. At least on the Ark she has her health, and she takes full advantage, creating her own routine of morning runs around the ring.

One morning she is blazing past the algae farm when Monty pops his head out and calls after her. When she backtracks, he sheepishly reaches out with a jar of something gross in his hand. "Can you open this for me?" he asks. "I still can't squeeze too hard without hurting my hands. Harper's not strong enough to open it."

"Sure," answers Echo, trying not to appear too excited. Monty squints curiously as she takes the jar and grips the metal cap. Her knuckles lose their color as she tries to work it free, wincing and grunting. Finally it gives and she sighs in relief, handing the jar back to Monty.

He takes it with a smile. "Knew I could count on you."

Echo blinks. "Why?"

"The access panel. The day we arrived," he reminds her. "Sometimes a little brute force is useful."

Brute force is useful. Of course. Echo may be completely out of her element, but if nothing else, she has her strength.

As she turns and continues her run, Echo decides to follow Raven after breakfast and see what she's up to. Raven's in pretty good shape but sometimes needs help with things because of her bad leg or short stature, so following her is probably the best way to find something useful to do. It doesn't hurt that she's so easy on the eyes, either.

Raven already has an assistant of sorts in Emori, but she's more like an apprentice for the tech side of things, so Echo's presence is welcomed. She's immediately put to work disassembling pieces of tech so Emori and Raven can salvage the components. It's not quite the physical labor she was hoping for, but at least it's something. Their techno mumbo jumbo goes right over her head, so she mostly works in silence until Raven sends Emori to relieve Bellamy at the radio.

"How's it coming over there?" asks Raven a few moments later.

"Fine," mumbles Echo, squinting as she tries to fit a tiny screwdriver head into an equally small cross-shaped hole on the back of what Raven refers to as a laptop. She'd rather just rip the cover off, but apparently she could damage the parts inside if she isn't careful. Brute force is not always useful, clearly.

Raven's conversational tone has gone a shade darker when she speaks again. "You offered to help," she points out. "If you want to leave, go ahead."

"I don't want to leave." Echo rolls her eyes as she continues to work. "Literally, it's fine. I do want to help, this just isn't something I'm used to." Finally she slaps the screwdriver down with a sigh. "I get frustrated learning new things."

"Well this should be a fun five years," deadpans Raven. Echo snorts and Raven chuckles lowly in response. There's some shifting noises behind Echo, then Raven asks, "Hey, can you grab something for me?"

"Sure." Grateful to switch tasks even for a moment, Echo turns and crosses to Raven's workbench, where the mechanic is pointing up at the shelves above.

"That rubber bin," she specifies, gesturing up at the highest shelf. "The one with the black lid. Careful, it might be heavy."

"The one that says 'scrap'?" asks Echo, glancing down for confirmation. Raven's eyes flick away and Echo narrows hers. "Why does everyone assume I can't read?"

"Emori doesn't read very well," explains Raven. "Didn't want to assume you could and end up embarrassing you."

"I was a spy," snaps Echo. "I had to be able to read and speak English." Stepping into Raven's space, she reaches up for the bin. There's definitely no way Raven could have reached it without help or a stepladder. Even she has to stand on her tiptoes to reach it. As she slides it off the shelf and into her hands, she grunts under its weight. " _Might_ be heavy?"

"Scrap metal," Raven clarifies just as Echo places it on the bench and gets a look for herself. She grabs a couple buckets from another shelf and puts them by the bin. "Figure this would be easier for you. Sort it into magnetic and non-magnetic." Handing her a magnet, Raven promptly returns to her own work.

Echo sucks it up as does as she's told, story of her life, but can't help the feeling she's being pandered to. "Is this actually helping, or are you just giving me something to do to make me feel better?"

"I care about getting shit done, not about making people feel better," Raven says to the circuit board she's examining. A kindred spirit. Sliding it into one of her piles, she turns to Echo and eyes her curiously. "Why are you suddenly so interested in helping me?"

"I was never not interested," shrugs Echo. "I just couldn't think of any way I could be useful to you. Figured it would be more productive to stay out of your way."

Raven squints at her. "Is that really what you think?"

"I'm a warrior, Raven. I'm nothing without a battle to fight." Scoffing under her breath, Echo tosses the large cog in her hand into the non-magnetic bucket. "The best thing I can do is shut up and do the grunt work."

"I dunno," counters Raven, "I can think of some ways you could be useful." Echo glances over and catches Raven's eyes raking over her body. Immediately her cheeks tingle, wanting to flare up as she absorbs these words and their possible implications. Her eyes have just settled on Raven's lips when they open again. "Bellamy says you're amazing at hand-to-hand combat."

"He did?" The surprise and hopefulness in Echo's tone makes her cringe the second the words are out of her mouth. When she catches the knowing look forming on Raven's face, her cheeks begin to flush in earnest and she quickly deflects, "I mean, he mostly knows that because of the time I took him down during our negotiations in Polis. Didn't think he'd brag about it."

Nodding slowly, Raven stuffs her fists in her jacket pockets and stands up a little taller. "You think you could teach me some stuff?"

Echo squints down at her, more surprised than relieved. "You want to learn how to fight?"

Raven scoffs and shakes her head, eyes falling to the bench. "Echo, I can't run from an enemy. It hurts to even try. I need to be able to defend myself, stop relying on other people to protect me."

"I understand." Echo nudges Raven's arm and flashes a rare smile as she looks up. "But for the record, I'd protect you. You're part of my clan now."

Raven's lips turn up, mirroring Echo's. Her smile is gorgeous, disarmingly so, and it occurs to Echo that she's never actually seen Raven smile before. What a pity. Just as she's resolving to try to make it happen more often, Raven's expression changes again, her lips tightening further into a facetious smirk. "So, Bellamy, huh?"

Blinking back down to the scrap bin, Echo casually asks, "What about him?"

"Please," snorts Raven. When Echo glances up sheepishly, she admits, "He's a good lay, but he has the emotional maturity of a doorknob."

Mouth slipping open, Echo stares at Raven. "You've been with Bellamy?"

"Once," she shrugs. "Just after we got to the ground." She blinks away from Echo's unflinching gaze. "Boyfriend drama. Don't really want to talk about it."

Echo bobs her head in thought. "Fair enough."

They quietly resume working, and it's a moment before Raven speaks again. "He has a good heart."

Echo nods. "I know that."

"Try not to break it."

"Yeah, right," scoffs Echo. "Me, break Bellamy's heart? That's hilarious, Raven."

"There's something going on there," insists Raven. "I know he's still mad at you for skewering Octavia, but… I don't know. There's something in the way he looks at you."

"He's debating whether or not to float me," deadpans Echo.

Raven snorts. "Probably." Picking up her next piece of tech, she adds, "Just try not to hurt him, okay? We have our disagreements, but I care about him."

Mulling this over a moment, Echo drums her fingers on the bench. "Look, Raven, if there's something with the two of you-"

"No, no," interjects Raven. "Nothing like that. I need Bellamy to be on his A game up here. And heartbroken Bellamy does stupid things like massacre peacekeeping armies in their sleep."

Those words make the air pop out of Echo's lungs and her fingers grip the edge of the bench. Staring down at the bin, she murmurs, "I'm sorry I almost killed you." Feeling Raven's curious gaze, she makes eye contact and specifies, "Well, not me, but… you know."

Raven nods slowly, and Echo can see the wheels turning in her head for a long moment before she says, "When I met first Lincoln, I tortured him because my boyfriend had been poisoned and he wouldn't give us the antidote. And when I first met Bellamy, I pulled a knife on him."

Echo chuckles despite herself. "When I first met him, I spit on his face."

A look of amusement crosses Raven's face and she concludes, "We've all done awful things to people who became our allies. Hell, Emori held Murphy up at knifepoint. And Murphy shot me."

"Shot you?" gapes Echo. "With a gun?" When Raven nods, she gives a low whistle. "Fuck. Not anywhere too bad, I'm guessing."

"In the spine," mutters Raven, averting her eyes to the bench again. Her body says much more than her lips, shoulders slumping as she shifts her weight to her right foot.

"That's why the leg," concludes Echo.

Raven nods and barely mumbles a "Yeah."

It's a lot to absorb, and for now Echo doesn't even try to process all this new information. Her only desire in the moment is to bring that smile back. So she says, "Okay."

Raven blinks curiously. "Okay what?"

"Okay I'll train you." A hopeful light sparks in Raven's eyes and Echo can't help but smirk. "But you have to promise to do as I say. You need to get stronger before I can teach you to fight."

"I can't run laps with you," protests Raven.

"No, but there are other things you can do," Echo assures her. "When do you want to start?"

"Now."

Echo cocks an eyebrow at Raven's enthusiasm, but when Raven responds with a resolute nod, a smile pushes its way onto her lips. "Okay, then."

***o***

While the training with Raven gets off to a good start, Echo botches the Bellamy part of their agreement terribly. The next time she sees him alone is that afternoon in the library. She's curled up reading on one of the couches when he walks in carrying a book of his own. A jocular smile flickers on his lips and as he passes by he tosses out a teasing, "So you _can_ read."

Echo snaps the book shut, brow creasing as she frowns. "You thought I was lying?"

"I think you're too proud to admit there's anything you can't do," Bellamy calls back as he peruses the books along one of the walls.

"It's not like you're any better, Bellamy," she huffs. Maybe he doesn't mean it, maybe he's just trying to get under her skin, but that wound is still raw from her earlier conversation with Raven. "I'm not Emori," she snarks. "I actually had parents, and they spoke both languages. They even had books. I was educated."

Bellamy frowns at her over his shoulder. "You don't have to be a dick about it. It's not like what happened to her is her fault. She didn't deserve to be banished." Whether he means to imply it or not, Echo can fill in the blanks herself.

"And I did," she states. Bellamy doesn't dispute it. Of course he doesn't. "What about Clarke? She cheated worse than I did and got welcomed into the bunker with open arms."

"That's not true," argues Bellamy. "She locked Octavia out, and I'm sure you can imagine how that made me feel." Echo can imagine, all right. He almost strangled her to death over it. "She got to stay because there's no way her mother would let her die," Bellamy continues as he plucks a new book from the shelf. Coming closer, he adds, "Besides, she was halfway trained to be a doctor, and they needed that in there."

Echo huffs, crossing her arms, and he narrows his eyes questioningly and demands, "Well what would your special skill be? We had hundreds of people who could fight, and probably most of them wanted to kill each other." Stomach gurgling unhappily, her lips pucker and she glowers up at him. He responds with a bewildered blink. "What?"

"Can't help feeling you think we're a bunch of uneducated bloodthirsty savages," snarks Echo. "Didn't your people kill each other too, for the smallest of infractions? Having too many kids, for example?"

She's crossed a line. She knows it the instant the words pass her lips, even before Bellamy starts to pale. He almost seems to lose his balance for a moment, until he squeezes his fists to bring himself back. His cold glare lands on her, and it's somehow more unsettling than his usual brand of anger. "Fuck you, Echo. That was not necessary."

Seeing him shifting his weight to leave, she quickly calls out, "Bellamy, wait." And he does. He stops. But he doesn't turn back or look her in the eye. She swallows. "I'm sorry. I don't want to fight."

"Could've fooled me," scoffs Bellamy.

Echo swallows the dull ache rising up in her throat. "Can we just start over?" Bellamy finally looks up and she lifts the book to indicate it. "Yes, I can in fact read."

"Clearly," he snaps.

Something akin to panic rises in Echo's chest. He is still only seconds away from walking out on her, she can tell. Grasping at straws, she suggests, "Maybe I can return the favor." Bellamy squints and she extrapolates, "I have a nice voice too."

He blinks as it dawns on him what she's suggesting. "You want to read to me?"

"Forget it," Echo backpedals immediately. "That's… it's stupid."

Bellamy steps closer, eyeing her inquisitively. "It's not stupid, it's just not something I'd expect out of you."

Echo's eyes fall to her lap. "I can see why."

A silent moment passes before Bellamy replies, "Well, I've read pretty much every book on this ship, but if you want you can go ahead." She meets his gaze and he gives her a challenging smirk. "Pick something."

Though Echo suspects his teasing is good-natured, it still rubs her the wrong way. "I for sure know some stories you haven't heard," she informs him. "Have a seat." When he obeys, she holds his gaze and begins to recite a classic Azgedean children's tale. In Trigedasleng. She's just trying to rub in that there's something she knows that he doesn't, but to her surprise he closes his eyes and slumps back on the couch, clearly listening.

When she finishes several minutes later, his eyes flutter open and settle on her curiously. "What was it about?"

"A little girl who goes out to play in the snow without a coat and freezes to death."

"That's… nice."

"A cautionary tale, I suppose," shrugs Echo. "Like Hansel and Gretel."

Bellamy's mouth falls open. "You know Hansel and Gretel?"

"And Little Red Riding Hood," she adds. "I told you my parents read me stories from back then."

Shaking the surprise from his head, Bellamy says, "I just didn't know you meant kids books."

"Oh yeah. I had to learn to read somehow. And Trig isn't really a written language."

"So you knew how before you were a spy," Bellamy infers.

"My parents were warriors. They spoke _gonasleng_." Bellamy squints and she translates, "The warrior's language. English. I guess they wanted me to have an advantage or something. Make me a better soldier."

"Seems like it worked," smiles Bellamy.

"Yeah," snorts Echo. "I was a good soldier, if nothing else."

"Oh, you're good at a lot of things," counters Bellamy. Echo squints and he expounds, "You're like Clarke. People trust you and they follow you. In the harvest chamber, you got hundreds of Grounders to quiet down just by yelling at them to shut up. And you took command of the army without hesitation when Roan was unconscious. No one questioned you."

"I learned from Queen Nia," snorts Echo. "Master of intimidation."

Bellamy tips his head. "Don't you remember the first Grounder you helped out of his cage? You were kind to him, able to talk him out."

Echo shrugs. "I'd been wasting away for weeks. Wasn't really up to yelling at people."

"But then you did," argues Bellamy. "You're good at taking orders, yeah, but you're good at giving them too. And you've got a level head. No wonder you were so high up."

Willing herself not to blush, Echo evenly states, "The closer I was to the royal family, the better I could serve them."

Bellamy eyes her curiously. "Why are you afraid to admit you're good at being in charge?"

"I'm not afraid. But I don't want to be in charge," she says flatly. "I get stuff done. That's what I'm good at. If I have to take charge to do it, fine. But I didn't care what the soldiers or subjects thought of me, I cared what Nia and Roan thought of me." She shudders a little as the words pass her lips. This is far more than she would share with most people. It's difficult to talk about and it makes her feel weak, this longing she's had since childhood to feel needed, to be indispensable to someone. She knows it stems from insecurities she'd rather not acknowledge.

Something changes in Bellamy's face, making her stomach twist. She hates that look. Pity. "That's why you looked so hurt when Roan banished you," he surmises. "I thought it was just 'cause you were about to die."

"A good soldier doesn't fear death." Purposely averting her eyes, Echo mutters, "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

A few seconds of thought later, he offers, "I'd say I'm sorry for getting you in trouble, but you were about to shoot my little sister."

"I just said I don't want to talk about this," Echo repeats, a warning edge in her tone.

"Fine," relents Bellamy. After a few seconds his lips twitch into a smile and he suggests, "How about another story?"

A relieved scoff pushes its way out of Echo's lungs. "All right."

Storytime becomes their own little routine after that. Well, maybe not routine, it doesn't happen on a regular schedule. But sometimes they'll find each other in the library, or she'll knock on his door, and they'll tell each other stories. Bellamy reads them from one of the hundreds of books on board, and Echo recites them from memory. Some in English, but mostly in Trigedasleng. Bellamy says he likes the way it sounds, and Echo likes that he doesn't understand very much. It means she can slip in the things she wants to do to him when it's on her mind, and he's none the wiser. To be honest, it's on her mind a lot.

Bellamy doesn't make it any easier. He relaxes more and more in her presence until one day in the library he lies down across the couch mid-story, curling up facing away from her with his head in her lap. She stiffens at the contact but he doesn't get the hint and move, instead resting a gentle hand on her knee in a silent order to relax. Trying to ignore the burning sensation in her groin would be useless, so instead she gives into it. Not by grabbing his mess of curls and turning his head to force his mouth to where she needs it so… so fucking bad, but by telling him what she wants. She doesn't even try to work it into a story now, just narrates a scene she has played over and over in her mind since long before they left Earth. She'll never tell him that part, though.

She doesn't get very far before a soft sound, something almost imperceptible, makes her stiffen again. Her head whips around as she searches for the source, but she sees nothing.

"What?" asks Bellamy. When she looks down at him she sees his brow furrowed in concern. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she says, trying to sigh out the tension in her shoulders. He settles on his side again and this time she lets her fingers slip into his hair, wrap around the wavy tendrils. But she doesn't let herself squeeze. There would be no coming back from that, and she's still not comfortable telling Bellamy how she feels. Not in English, anyway.

When she hears the sound again, she knows she didn't imagine it. A soft snigger rising up from behind them only moments after she resumes the tale. Her head snaps up and she glares over her shoulder. "Okay, whoever is back there, you'd better come out right now if you don't want me to beat you to death," she hollers into the room.

"That's a little drastic," Bellamy mumbles as he sits up and follows her gaze. Echo's worst fears are confirmed when the only other native speaker on the Ark steps out from behind one of the freestanding bookshelves - stacks, as Bellamy calls them. Emori's holding a children's book, her forefinger wedged between the pages to save her place, wearing an expression somewhere between embarrassed and amused.

As much as she tries not to react in any way that could tip Bellamy off, Echo can't help her reflexive gulp. "Emori. I didn't know you were in here."

"I am," Emori parrots dumbly. "I'm in here."

Bellamy narrows his eyes. "What were you laughing at?"

"She's at a funny part," says Emori, gesturing at Echo. Already halfway to the door, she throws out a quick, "I gotta go, John's probably wondering where I am."

As the door shuts behind her, Bellamy turns to Echo, eyebrow cocked. "That was weird."

"Yes it was," she agrees. "Not sure what she thought was so funny. It was just about riding a horse through a snowy forest."

That eyebrow crawls higher on his forehead. "A horse? I didn't hear anything about a horse."

Echo's heart flutters and drops into her stomach, but she keeps her face as blank as ever. "Oh? What did you hear?"

Bellamy shrugs, directing a coy smile at the cushions as he shifts to lean back against the couch's arm. "Doesn't matter." Plucking a book out of a crack between a couple of the cushions, he suggests, "How about I take a turn?"

That's not an offer Echo would refuse. Ever.

***o***

Echo avoids Emori's gaze at dinner, too embarrassed about what the girl overheard to look her in the eye. She doesn't look much of anyone in the eye, actually, feeling uncharacteristically skittish after being caught in the act. She passes on the card game, retiring to her room to stew in nerves and shame. But she can't hide forever. When a parade of footsteps echoes down the hall a couple hours later, signalling the end of the game, Echo hears a knock on her door. Heaving a loud sigh, she calls to whoever it is to come in. But she's pretty sure she knows who it is. That's not Bellamy or Raven's knock.

Emori peeks her head around the door and gives Echo a nod in greeting. " _Heya_."

" _Hei_ ," Echo sighs from her spot on the bed. " _Sochu_?"

Chuckling softly, Emori lets herself in and closes the door behind her. "You have to be more careful, look who's around before you speak," she says, coming closer. The switch in languages surprises Echo for a second, until it dawns on her that Emori probably hasn't used Trig at all in the five or so months since they got here. Echo herself hasn't had much use for it either, other than storytime with Bellamy. English is becoming the default, for both of them. Sitting herself down on the edge of Echo's bed, Emori explains, "John and Raven understand some Trig. Learned it from Luna. They might tell on you."

Fighting to keep her anxiety under wraps, Echo lifts a challenging eyebrow. "Will you?"

"Not planning on it," smirks Emori. "That would be an awkward conversation to start. 'Hey Bellamy, Echo wants to sit on your face and then sit on your-'"

" _Ait, daun ste pleni_ ," interjects Echo as a blush creeps up her neck.

"Too bad I couldn't stop laughing. Wouldn't have minded hearing more." Emori twitches her eyebrows suggestively and Echo scoffs.

" _Jok of_ , Emori."

Now her fellow Grounder's half smile grows into a genuine grin. "If you insist, but you could've at least given me a little more material-"

" _Bants_!" Echo orders her with a soft shove. "Seriously! You're just as bad as your boyfriend."

Standing to obey, Emori chuckles again. "That's definitely not true. John would never let this go."

"And you will?" Echo fires back.

Pretending to ponder this a moment, Emori teases, " _Mebi pas fai yiron_." Echo's resulting glare doesn't deter Emori from throwing her a parting wink as she makes for the door. "Good luck with that, by the way."

Emori is true to her word. She neither tells Bellamy nor lets it go. Though she never blatantly mentions Echo's indiscretion again, she throws plenty of sassy looks Echo's way when she sees her with Bellamy. Especially once they start training together, sparring hand-to-hand in plain view on the mats Echo put down in one of the large common areas.

In Echo's defense, it was Bellamy's idea. When he saw the huge improvements in Raven's fitness and mood thanks to her sessions with Echo, he wanted to get in on it too. Echo was more than happy to take him on as a student. Not only did it make it her feel twice as useful, it gave her one more attractive person to get physical and sweaty with. Which, given her current drought of certain kinds of physicality, she could certainly appreciate.

On a less perverted level, the extra alone time with Bellamy is legitimately enjoyable. He's a keen pupil, always listening intently and trying to improve. His appreciation for her tutelage is rewarding too, and if she's not imagining it, the more they train the more relaxed he becomes around her. Maybe giving her an opportunity to harm him several times a week and coming away unscathed is finally helping him trust her again.

Sometimes, more unscathed than others. As the weeks pass, Echo also loosens up and loses her reluctance to hurt him for the sake of instruction. One afternoon in particular, Bellamy foolishly tries to overpower her and she uses his own force against him, laying him out flat on his back. He smacks into the mat hard with a surprised yelp, and Echo can't help but chuckle with satisfaction as she kneels above him. Rubbing the back of his hip, Bellamy scowls up at her. "Ow, what the hell was that for?"

"To teach you a lesson," Echo scolds him. "When your weaknesses get exploited, you learn to compensate or turn them into strengths. It's either that or die."

"What are my weaknesses?" he inquires, attentive eyes never straying from Echo.

"Same as every man on the fucking planet," she grunts as she gets to her feet. "Or off the planet, I suppose. You rely too heavily on your strength." She pitches a towel at him. "You need to work on your technique."

Wiping the sweat from his neck, Bellamy cocks an eyebrow. "You're the first woman to ever tell me that." Echo's mouth slips open helplessly as she stares into his dancing eyes and realizes what he means. Her cheeks flush as she tries to formulate a reply. She knows how to handle his passive-aggressive barbs, but not a blatantly flirtatious remark out of fucking nowhere. He's clearly enjoying her discomfort too, which only makes it more humiliating. Grinning as he gets up, he proposes, "Storytime after cards?"

Still too shocked to come up with much of a response, Echo stares blankly and answers, "Okay."

"Great," he says, giving Echo a light punch to the shoulder as he brushes by her. "Meet me in the library."

Though she hides it well, Echo is on edge throughout dinner and the ensuing series of card games. Since there's no subtle way to excuse herself, she participates as usual and tries to keep her foot from tapping out an anxious and impatient rhythm. When the group finally decides to pack it in, she takes steady steps to her room and sits down for a couple minutes, squeezing fistfuls of blanket with sweaty palms. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe Bellamy was just joking, just trying to embarrass her. She wouldn't put it past him. But she can read him pretty well, and she can't shake the feeling that he was legitimately flirting with her, and therefore that this storytime is special.

Really, this is stupid. She's letting herself get worked up, over a boy no less. Echo's better than this. Standing before she can talk herself out of it, she marches to the library to find out what exactly Bellamy had in mind.

Bellamy is already there when she arrives. Though the lights are off, she can make out his silhouette moving around near the far end of the room. Now able to navigate the library in relative darkness, Echo crosses the floor without any more bruised shins. As she gets close, she sees that the tables usually under the large skylight have been pushed to the sides of the room. Bellamy has arranged several couch cushions in the open space and is draping a blanket over them as she approaches.

"Right on time." Easing himself down into a sitting position, he gives the cushions a welcoming pat. "Lie down." Echo cocks her head, shooting him a doubtful look, and he gives her one of those disarming smiles he's so good at. "Trust me. I'm not going to hurt you."

Echo gives him a few more seconds of feigned reluctance before acquiescing, silently joining him on the cushions and lying down to his right. It's definitely more comfortable than lying on the cramped table like the first time he brought her here, she'll give him that. They've been staring up at the stars for a moment when she hears a quiet click to her left and then the soft chirping of crickets fills the air, seemingly coming from all directions. She shoots upright, eyes huge, and hears a soft chuckle from Bellamy just before the hoot of an owl that snaps her head to the side in surprise. When she catches Bellamy's eye, he's grinning.

"It's all off a computer," he tells her. "Sound effects people used to use in movies." Echo is speechless, eyes drifting up to the stars as she continues to listen. A hint of uncertainty has crept into Bellamy's tone when he next speaks a few moments later. "You said you missed the way it sounds down there at night."

Swallowing the tightness in her throat, Echo nods. "I remember." A soft gust of air hits her and her brow furrows. "The wind. How did you do that?" she asks, squinting at Bellamy as she lies down facing him.

"I reprogrammed the ventilation," he answers with another proud grin. Then he gives a sheepish shrug and admits, "Monty helped me do it."

The sheer amount of thought and effort he put into this… no one has done anything like this for Echo before. Ever. The gesture is so overwhelming her eyes begin to sting. She manages to hold back any tears, but hears the raw wonder and emotion in her voice when she asks Bellamy, "You did all this for me?"

He's so close she can feel the heat of his blush. "It's not like I don't miss Earth."

Before Echo knows it, she's kissing him. She can't help it. Her fingers slide up his cheek and into his hair, gently squeezing as she pushes her lips against his with a quiet determination. Her eyes are squeezed shut, not out of fear of his reaction so much as sheer concentration and effort. Bellamy is surprised, she can feel it in the way he briefly freezes up, but then he relaxes and sighs into the kiss, lifting a hand to caress her cheek.

He's wearing a shy smile when they pull apart. Shy but genuine. Though the brush of his thumb over the corner of her mouth indicates he may want more, he grabs the book from beside him and holds it up in question. "You said you wanted some stories, right?"

Caught off guard, Echo responds with a deep and throaty laugh. "Sure. Why not?" Bellamy sits up and she follows suit, watching curiously as he straps something to his head. Just when Echo thought the moment could not get any more absurd, he flicks some kind of a switch and the part attached to his forehead lights up, illuminating his face. She laughs again, harder, and Bellamy tries to give her an indignant scowl that comes out more like a comical pout. "You look ridiculous," she tells him through residual giggles.

"The things I do for you," he deadpans. She blinks in confusion but he doesn't answer, just lies back and beckons her to join him with a cocked eyebrow and an outstretched arm. Echo only pretends to hesitate for a second before giving in, tentatively curling up beside him with her head on his upper arm. Bellamy clears his throat and picks the book back up with his free hand, and as his eyes flick up it finally occurs to her that it's a reading light. Her hand migrates to his shoulder and grips the sleeve of his t-shirt as he begins to read. His voice is melodic and soothing and her eyes drift shut.

Midway through the second short story, Echo shifts her weight and subtly settles a little closer. Not missing a beat, Bellamy tightens his arm around her in encouragement. By the time he's finished story number three, she's resting a head and hand on his chest while he absentmindedly plays with her hair. Now that he's gone silent, Echo can hear his steady heartbeat echoing across his ribcage. When she experimentally traces her fingers over his chest, it quickens and she feels him swallow. She smiles and sighs with relief. Brushing gentle fingers over her arm, he queries, "You want to hear another?"

"No," she answers definitively, taking the book from his hand. While she puts it aside, Bellamy reaches up and removes the headlamp. He leaves it lit, though, letting it fill the room with soft light and shadows. As Echo meets his gaze, his eyes lock onto hers and hold them with an intensity she's never seen before. Not in a positive context, anyway. Cupping his jaw, she leans in to reconnect their lips. It's another slow kiss, but she doesn't mind. After how long she's already waited for him, she can wait a few minutes longer, linger and savor the moment.

Nipping at his lips, she works her tongue between them and languidly drags her palm from his jaw down to his neck. Her fingers have just clenched around the collar of his shirt when he pulls back a little, just enough to disrupt the kiss. Her questioning blink prompts his lips to curl into a sassy smirk, one she wants to kiss right off his face. " _Yu don biyo yu gaf jok of ai_?"

Heat flares up in Echo's cheeks immediately and her eyes jump away from his knowing gaze. "You said you couldn't understand me," she mumbles.

"Back then, I couldn't," chuckles Bellamy. "But I have ears and half a brain. Trig's not so different from English."

"Half a brain is right. Your grammar is atrocious," she informs him. Fiddling with his collar once again, she mutters, "I'll have to sit you down and teach you properly, if you butchering the language is the alternative."

A finger slides under her chin and pushes up, forcing her to meet Bellamy's eyes again. They're playful, yet earnest. "Don't change the subject."

Clearing her throat, Echo shifts in place and admits, "I may have said something along those lines, once or twice."

Bellamy cocks an eyebrow. "Once or twice, huh?"

" _Shof op_ _,_ " huffs Echo.

Eyes narrowing mischievously, he sasses her, "Make me."

Echo doesn't need to be told twice. In a second she's clapped a hand over his mouth and rolled fully on top of him, pushing down on him with her weight. His grunt of surprise and arousal pulls her lips tight in a pompous grin and she grinds into him again. This time his eyes squeeze shut, a groan muffled under her hand. Echo's groin seizes and she slides her hand up into his hair, gripping it tight as she dives headfirst into another kiss.

Thankfully Bellamy shares her enthusiasm, his roaming hands and demanding lips obscuring the almost certain fact that she needs this more than he does. She isn't embarrassed for wanting him, but revealing her deepest desires and needs is not something she's comfortable with. Not yet, anyway. There's already enough to be insecure about.

Pushing herself up into a sitting position straddling Bellamy's stomach, Echo pins his shoulders to the cushions and raises her eyebrows. " _Nou fir yu raun_?"

Bellamy smiles, his hands coming to rest on her hips. "No. I trust you."

* * *

A/N: Thanks to blogquantumreality on Tumblr for helping me with some of the trickier translations. They are as follows:

 _Heya_ / _Hei_ = Hi  
 _Sochu_? = What's up?  
 _Ait, daun ste pleni_ = Okay, that's enough  
 _Jok of_ = Fuck off  
 _Bants_ = Leave  
 _Mebi pas fai yiron_ = Maybe after five years  
 _Yu don biyo yu gaf jok ai op_? (the correct translation) = You said you want to fuck me?  
 _Shof op_ = Shut up  
 _Nou fir yu raun_? = You're not afraid?

Again, thanks for your patience! I hope this ending was worth the wait.


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